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The Lost Twelve Days of Christmas

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In 2005, President Bush lit the National Christmas Tree on December 1. In 1941, President Roosevelt did so on Christmas Eve.

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Human beings, when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs or understanding of the world, respond in one of two ways: 1) More commonly, they rationalize why the facts don't matter; or 2) less commonly, they learn from them.

The Irony of the Merchants’ Christmas

All Jews know when the eight days of Hanukkah begin and end. Every Muslim knows the exact days of their holy month of Ramadan. But today, few American Christians know the number of days of their most cherished holy season, Christmas; nor when these days occur, or that they even exist. They do know the shopping days countdown.

It is a cruel irony that 2,000 years after Jesus Christ kicked out the merchants from the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, the celebration of his birth is now directed so much by the merchants of today; by retailers, like Macy’s, and property management companies, like Weingarten Realty, whose admitted number one priority is maximizing profit for shareholders, and for whom appropriateness and respect for the Christian calendar are not considerations for restraint. This is why you now see “Christmas” decorations show up at their properties as early as mid-October. And yet, most people today take their instruction of the what and when of Christmas from those very sources. Ask the average American today when is the Christmas Season, and most will tell you dates that have nothing to do with the actual Christmas and everything to do with shopping. And so, we see more and more “Thanksgiving Day” trees, and now even the occasional “Halloween Christmas” tree. Even newscasters will refer to the shopping season as the “Christmas Season” though every Christian calendar will disagree. Can you imagine the same lack of respect and regard for accuracy for the holy seasons of other faiths, like the Muslim Ramadan, or the Jewish Hanukkah?

Is this an assault on Christianity, or Christmas? If so, it is one that Christians have permitted. We do not instruct ourselves (and so we certainly cannot our children) about our religious traditions. Thus, we pay little attention to the constant stretching and twisting of the holy days calendar by merchant entities whose sole reason for putting up Christmas decorations is to sell you something. Which is why, when folks 50 years ago would put up their trees on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, today they take them down as soon as the exchange of material gifts is over. Nothing wrong with gift-giving, of course. But, when we make “getting stuff,” especially for children, the focus of the Christmas holiday, we are teaching our children that that is what this most celebrated holiday is all about. Even if your observance is purely secular, you are still sending the same message: merchant advertising trumps 100 generations of cultural and religious heritage. We can bemoan all evening long at cocktail parties about the commercialization of the season, but our words mean nothing compared to our example. What we do, and how we do it, always speaks louder than our words. In everything we choose to do we communicate to others what we value, what we think is important. And yet, we are constantly shocked, shocked! at the materialism of young people – as if we had nothing to do with it.

Regrettably, our gentle Thanksgiving Day has suffered the crush of the Christmas shopping steamroller, with signs and symbols of this uniquely national holiday, one that joins us Americans, almost extinct. Whatever actually happened in history, the ideal of Thanksgiving is still noble: the coming together of peoples of different races and cultures for the purpose of giving thanks. But, Thanksgiving long ago stopped looking like Thanksgiving, looking instead like what it has become: a billboard ad for Christmas shopping. Again, our children observe how we observe the holidays, and derive instruction from it.

The purpose of all religious and patriotic holidays is to unite a group of humans as a people, to jointly in time reflect on commonly shared elevating values, beliefs, and aspirations for a better future. The choice each of us has is whether to center our observances on the traditions that bring us together in that reflection, or simply on whatever makes us feel good at the moment. But be warned that the latter choice eventually leads to emptiness and loneliness devoid of meaning.

The Twelve Days and the Epiphany

So, just exactly when is the Christmas Season? Well, it begins on Christmas Eve, with Christmas Day being the first Day of Christmas. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are not just a carol, but in fact, twelve days that stretch into January 5. The last day of the season is on January 6, the day of the Epiphany of our Lord. Christmas is preceded by the Advent season in a way similar to how the Lenten season precedes Easter. Four Sundays before Christmas, Christians are supposed to be preparing for the coming (advent) of Christ’s birth.

While Christmas day celebrates the birth of Christ, the Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ's divinity on earth, with the arrival of the Three Magi Kings, Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltazar. What this means is that the arrival of the three Wise Men, who followed the westward-moving star to reach the Christ child, was the visible sign to the world of Christ's divinity - of who he really was. Today, hundreds of millions of children in many predominantly Christian countries around the world, celebrate this day by opening gifts left to them by the Three Magi Kings during the previous night. Initially, though, the Christians of the East observed Epiphany as the both the nativity and baptism of Christ, before it was later adopted by the Western Church in its current form.

It is true that no one really knows exactly when Christ was born. For the first three hundred years after the crucifixion, the birth of Christ was not a major Christian holiday and there was no agreed upon date, with different Christian communities observing the nativity on different dates, ranging anywhere from December 25 to January 6, to March 25. During that time there was much discussion as to when Christ was actually born. How, at the end of the fourth century A.D., the early Church finally came to settle on December 25 is not clearly known either. However, the date happened to be close to the observance of several other ancient, pagan celebrations such as Saturnalia, the annual rebirth of Mithras (a sun god of sorts), and other solstice-centered celebrations of other Indo-European cultures. While December 25 had long been considered as one of the possible dates of Christ’s birth, some scholars maintain that the early Church was influenced by the wide observance of these other winter festivities for several reasons. But, this is speculation.

It is important to note that there are practical reasons why the early winter calendar was crowded with the festivals developed by various faiths and cultures since almost the beginning of history. Among them was the recognition of the ancients for the need to lift the human spirit during the dark, cold days following the winter solstice. They may have not understood fully the wise psychology of their traditions, but their festivities gave the people a much needed spiritual boost at the onset of winter. Today, science is beginning to show that people are indeed more susceptible to depression during the longer nights of early winter, and are aided by festive traditions that get them through the darkest days of the year (provided their expectations are reasonable and healthy). So, Christmas festivities may have been partially intended to lift Christian spirits during the first two weeks of winter as they were for everyone else. (Today, folks who throw out their trees on Christmas Day after an orgy of gift-exchanges, essentially have given themselves and extra two weeks of colorless winter with which to contend.) In a similar vein, it has also been suggested that the Church fathers wanted Christians to have something to celebrate at the same time that the rest of society was in festivities so as to make them less susceptible to persecution. In any case, by the end of the fourth century, after two centuries of discussion, the eastern and western branches of Christianity finally settled, in custom and practice, on the Christmas calendar churches still follow today. This was affirmed two hundred years later by The Second Council of Tours, in 566 or 567, that proclaimed the sanctity of the "Twelve Days" from Christmas to Epiphany.

Through the following centuries, Christian celebrations of Christmas varied in length and form, and from place to place, all the while accumulating an ever larger number of traditions and symbols. But, the dates on the Christian calendar have remained fixed ever since.

Christmas in Modern America

In the modern age, Christmas has become a victim of its own success. The wide appeal of its customs, carols, and traditions, to people of other faiths, and of none, has led to a deliberate as well as accidental secularization of Christmas - as people adopt the pretty trappings of Christmas, but little of its meaning. While non-Christian people adopting the Christmas holiday is in itself is not a bad thing, especially when folks still try to link the holiday to noble hopes, it is a problem when Christians surrender the stewardship of their own holiday to the powerful interests of money. And, it is a problem even for those who are not Christian, but still want to observe the holiday as something connected to the hope for peace on earth.

We might be made to unconciously absorb the suggestion that it is always Christmas and normal to be flat broke.”

-Newspaper columnist George Dixon, on the subliminal advertising scare of the 1950’s.

Well, subliminal advertising fell in disfavor, but the strong influence powerful commercial interests have on Christmas is evidenced by how they have managed, through incremental but steady change, to make everyone think that the Christmas Season is when you shop. And, that change has been absorbed even by our highest, non-commercial institutions. As late as the 1940’s, the National Christmas tree on the White House lawn was not lit by the President of the United States until Christmas Eve. But by 1986, the date had already been pushed to December 12. By 1996, it was at December 5. In 2005, it was lit on December 1. The giant Christmas Tree-lighting at Rockefeller Center in New York City has similarly been progressively pushed forward. Some sample dates: In 1945, the tree was lit on December 14. In 1986, on December 7; in 1996, December 3, in 2005 the date moved into November (November 30 – check and see when it happened this year – guaranteed it happened before November 30). Shopping venues have been far more egregious in their disregard of the real Christmas Season, where Christmas often arrives before Halloween, and still earlier every year.

Our personal observances aside, it is possible to also push back the public observances of the season. In 2003, the West Gray shopping Center delayed its Christmas decorating by a month after a written complaint signed by just a few cusotmers was delivered to all the merchants in the complex. The Houston shopping center had been noted the worst offender of Christmas excess in its vicinity, and for continuously moving their “Christmas Season” about three days earlier every year (in 2000, Weingarten Realty decorated the center by November 1; in 2001, by October 28; and in 2002, by October 25). In 2003, they began on October 21, when the complaint was delivered. Decorations were then delayed until just before Thanksgiving (still too soon, but a significant change). What is interesting about these gradual changes is how consistent they are (they never retreat, but always move forward by about the same amount). So, when someone dismisses any effort to correct the current situation as hopeless – ignore them. Chances are that person never changed anything. Whatever our background or belief, we educate others through our action; be it in the practice of a tradition focused on a shopping binge, or one based on what was passed on to us through millennia – and what we will pass on to the future.

Connected Across Space and Time

From the dawn of history, humans have understood that symbols and actions speak more powerfully and deeply than mere words. What are we saying about what we understand? About what is important? About what we value? And so, about ourselves, in how and when we go about celebrating the Christmas Season?

When Christmas Day arrives, that is the day the herald trumpet harks and echoes thru cathedral and steeple walls, and the pink and purple candles give way to cascades of red ribbons and gold robes. That is when the Gloria, absent in anticipation, once again sings of God’s glory, and peace to His people on earth.

While many see Christmas Day as the end of the season, the full irony of that is that Christmas Day has always been about the beginning. Christmas Day: the first day of a beautiful season handed down to us by millions across the centuries. And so it was that over 1,600 years ago, fellow human beings, who share with us today an understanding of the meaning and purpose of our existence; who believed, as Christians and others still do today, that there is more to the world than mere random interaction of atoms and particles; that there is such as things as goodness and justice that no scientific instrument can ever measure; that the glory of God can reside in the human spirit; and that no sacrifice for another, no matter how miserable, lonely or forgotten, is missed by the eye of God; so it was that these kindred spirits, our brethren of long ago, tried to communicate to us, and all future generations, through the traditions they laid down for us to follow.

Long after our "Western" culture has faded or been vanquished, Christmas may very well be marked on the Christian calendar as it has been, for the remainder of humanity's existence. Across the ages, kings and presidents, languages and cities, empires and republics, even our noble and beloved United States of America, will all one day pass away into memory. But, the traditions that serve as the vessel of the message born two thousand years ago, though they may wax and wane through the ages, will bind us. And thusly, as holy people have long explained, those who observe the same days in similar manner, are connected to those in the past, as well as those in the future: They are, and ever will be, one body of common belief, connected across space and time.

You have have a standing invitation to join them.

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